Masked beading

As most of you probably know, I LOVE to bead. And I love BEADS, these tiny splashes of color, shimmer and shine! I started stringing my first beads into a necklace about 5 years ago, a couple of months after arriving in the USA. Since then, I have made dozens of necklaces, bracelets and earrings, evolving from straightforward stringing to much more intricate bead weaving and embroidery techniques. Some of these pieces I still wear today, some I gifted or sold, and some I just look at.
Over these years, my sources of inspiration are evolving as well, and with that I am working on a transition from crafter of functional, wearable jewelry to a creator of art. Art in the sense of how Wikipedia defines it: 


"Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions and intellect." 


Last February I created my very first non-jewelry bead-piece; an aquatic basket with fish as a Pisces present for Jeroen's birthday. 

And recently I embarked on a much larger adventure, picking up wooden masks from the African Festival of the Arts on Chicago's south side. I am going to use these as a blank canvas. A canvas as a template for beads, fabric, leather, and anything else that fits my inspiration. The mask I started working on right now is a mask from West-Africa. The first step was some good old cleaning, sanding and repairing the major cracks and dents. E voila: a blank canvas. How exciting!

I'll keep you posted on my progress in the coming months through GABROEN posts. As someone said: 2012 is going to be my year. We'll see about that, but 2012 is going to be the year I created some beaded masks, some pieces of inspiration, some pieces that will definitely affect my senses and emotions, and hopefully those of many other people as well. I can't wait.............

GABROEN on behalf of Gabriella